Melican Middle School (Plus Borders) Trip Report

After my visit to Algonquin High School, I spent two days visiting Melican Middle School in Northboro, MA. This involved another first for me -- signing not only books, but body parts too! Two palms, a half-dozen arms, and one forehead. No one ever asked me to sign a body part before. I felt like a rock star. Well, sorta...

I also felt unprepared -- I don't own an appropriate body-part-signing pen. My usual purple book-signing pen doesn't cut it. The ink doesn't stick. But permanent marker seems a bit... permanent. And with a signature, it's not like you can say, "It wasn't me." Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there a kind of pen that signs well on skin but won't annoy parents? Does the fact that I'm worrying about this make me a complete dork? Is this ever even going to be an issue again?

Just in case, perhaps I should do some testing. When I started signing books, I bought about a dozen different purple pens and tested them out on a book that I didn't like very much. My pen of choice: the Pilot G-2. I could do the same with body pens. Just pick a body part I don't like to test them on. Like my chin. I'm not a fan of my chin, though perhaps that's not the best choice for signature experimentation...

I'd visited this school before (minus any body-part signatures). In October, I spoke with the sixth grade. This time, I came to talk to the seventh and eighth grades. I did ten presentations over the course of two days, and I had lunch in the cafeteria with the students in between talks. It's really a wonderful school filled with great students and teachers.

It's also the school that the main character in INTO THE WILD attends! Chapter three starts right outside at the bus pick-up area. Right here:

Julie's School

I think this is cool. During this visit, I talked with people who would be in Julie's classes, if she weren't, y'know, fictional and stuff.

I also discovered that the Curriculum Coordinator at Melican, Nancy Payne, taught GAIN (the Gifted and Talented program) at Lincoln Street Elementary School when I was a student there! I didn't make the connection during my last visit because when she was my teacher, I called her Mrs. Payne and now I call her Nancy. Totally different. (Yeah, I totally wouldn't qualify for the gifted program any more.) We reminisced about the time when we all dressed up as figures from famous paintings, and there was a fire drill and one of the fifth grade boys waltzed out of the school as Whistler's Mother, complete with black dress and high heels.

Me and Nancy Payne

In between the two days at Melican, I did a book signing at the Borders in Shrewsbury. I love this Borders. Everyone who works there has been so nice to me. And they give me hot chocolate. I really like hot chocolate. [Brief digression: Once, during a trip to Spain, my husband and I tried to order hot chocolate. Our Spanish is limited to what you learn on Sesame Street, but after a few funny looks, the waiter brought us two cups of very thick hot chocolate. We drank it. The next morning at breakfast, we were served churros with chocolate (donut-like sticks that you dip in chocolate), and we realized that what we'd thought was hot chocolate was actually the chocolate dip for the churros. Yes, we drank the dip. Again, not so "gifted" any more.]

Anyway, this was my very last book event for 2007! If you'd like to see any of my trip reports from other events, I've put links for each event on the Appearances page of my website. Hope you all are having a wonderful last few days of 2007!

Another Massachusetts Trip!

I'm heading up to Massachusetts again for more book fun! On Tuesday, I'll be visiting Algonquin Regional High School in Northboro, MA (the town where I grew up and where INTO THE WILD is set). On Wednesday and Thursday, I'll be returning to Melican Middle School in Northboro. (In October, I visited their sixth grade; this week, I'm visiting the seventh and eighth grades.)

I'll also be doing a bookstore signing while I'm there. On Wednesday, December 19th, I'll be signing copies of INTO THE WILD at the Borders in Shrewsbury, MA. (That's the one on Route 9.) Here are the key details:

Wednesday, December 19th from 3-5pm
Borders Shrewsbury - Signing
476 Boston Turnpike, Shrewsbury, MA

If you're in the area on Wednesday, please stop by and say hi!

Thanksgiving Recap

Just polished off the last of the leftover Thanksgiving turkey. The pizza place will be pleased. They've missed us.

We had a busy holiday weekend. (Okay, yes, it was ages ago. I'm a bit behind here. Sorry!) Here's the quick recap:

Thursday: Ate a lot. We calculated that there was enough food for each of us to have 2 pounds of turkey, 10 meatballs, 5 slices of beef, 3 pies, and 6 tons of stuffing. We're good eaters here.

Friday: Book signing at the Borders in Meriden, CT. Great place for a book signing, and a great day for it too. This Borders is in a mall so there was quite a bit of foot traffic on Black Friday. The super-nice Borders folk set me up with a lovely table right near the mall entrance. I talked to lots of people. In fact, I found myself saying hello so often that at one point, I realized I'd said hello to a Children's Place shopping bag. (It had photos of people on it and was carried by right at my eye level.) Thankfully, the bag did not reply.

Saturday: Reading and signing at the Borders in Shrewsbury, MA. Another great store with super-nice staff. They set up a big, beautiful rack of my books in the reading area, and then wheeled out a handcart full of Into the Wilds to the front of the store for the signing. I really, really wanted to build a big, beautiful, purple igloo made of copies of Into the Wild around me, but a little voice in my head whispered that that might be a tad unprofessional. The little voice in my head was undeterred by the fact that having little voices in one's head is also a tad unprofessional.

Purple Igloo Building Materials

Sunday: Apologized to family for spending most of the weekend at bookstores. Returned home.

Next blog post: Tuesday's visit to Bancroft School in Worcester.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Anyone have any interesting turkey stories? How about tofurkey stories? (How much do you love that word? Tofurkey. I could say it all day. Tofurkey, tofurkey, tofurkey...)